Thursday & Friday & Christmas Eve

We were both up and out early on Thursday (12/22) for our yearly, routine dermatology visit….Michael had a spot on his forehead zapped, and I had minor surgery to remove 2 things (I don’t remember what they were called) from my upper thigh. They were sent off for pathology…but I’m sure they were nothing serious.

We got home and picked up Cookie and headed back to the vet’s for more fluid, and some anti-nausea pills. We were home for good around NOON, and I spent a lot of time writing blog entries (I was 3 days behind). Finally around 5 PM, I was ready to do a bit of sewing, and started to put my QoV rows together. I headed upstairs before 8 PM and we started watching our Christmas movies….on tap tonight was ELF!

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Happy Christmas Eve Eve - OMword….you should have seen the wind on Friday morning (12/23)!! I went out twice to run up and down the street collecting recycling which had blown out of everyone’s bin. By 8:30 AM it was like nothing had happened…the trees were as calm as calm could be….weird! I opened the door so that furry babies could bask in the sun:

I spent most of the day in my studio, and got my QoV all sewn together, with the first border on:

and worked on the second border. Susan came over to share lunch together and go over a few things we wanted to discuss, and Michael and I SKYPE’d with the kids and got to see AJ open her Christmas present…a word game for the whole family.

Michael and Cookie both came down while I was working in the late afternoon....and here it is...a boy and his dog:

We both had leftovers for dinner and settled in for our second Christmas movie….we decided to watch GLASS ONION, which dropped on NETFLIX….it’s the second mystery in the KNIVES OUT series, and if you haven’t seen either movie (with Daniel Craig as a southern detective)….you need to…they’re both a hoot! Clean cut, all American fun!

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I got up Saturday morning (12/24) and spent about a minute in the bathroom…and when I got back to my bed I thought my nightstand looked funny….it took a moment for my brain to register that in that short amount of time, the electricity had gone off. I got dressed and took Cookie out, then sat in the living room, with Ethel on my chest, purring away as I stroked her until Michael & Cookie eventually got up.

We went out in search of food….with no success…I guess we are terrible hunter/gatherers! We went about 5 miles north on 521, and it was weird where there was electricity…and where there wasn’t. With seemingly every other traffic light not working, we figured it was safer if we just headed back home. When we originally called in the outage, they estimated power would be back on by 3:15 PM (on the coldest day of the year….it was 13 degrees outside while we were out ‘’foraging’’), but within 5 minutes of returning home, the power came back on at 9:30 AM….whew! I have to tell you….that short amount of time without electricity made me very, very grateful that even without it…I still had a snug shelter….with lots and lots of quilts to snuggle under….something many, many people do not have….something to think about.

My honey made me an egg/cheese/toast and I worked on finishing making the outer border and getting it attached to my QoV:

I also stitched out 2 labels for the 2 lavender backed quilts I hope to get bound sometime next week:

and I finished up the last 3 labels for Scrap Happy:

I did the binding for the QoV:

and at last….got to work on something new!!! There is one company that I consistently buy new longarm designs from, and I suggested a design for her to develop. She developed it…and sent me a free copy, and I have been DYING to put it on a quilt. I looked at all of my flimsies (the official name of a finished quilt top only) and didn’t have anything I thought would work with the pattern….so I need to make something. I spent a bit of time pulling out my fabrics for men’s quilts, and finally got 15 fabrics I think I can use:

I spent the rest of the afternoon ironing and beginning to cut them into 10-1/2’’ squares. I got about 5 strips cut, and decided to refresh my memory on the pattern....oops!!! Really should have done that before I started cutting anything. Oh well, I changed the size a bit because I don't want big bed quilts here, I'm going for dialysis quilts instead....and we will see how it works out:

Michael spent an hour and a half on the phone, and running around the house, trying to get our internet and TV’s working again to no avail….I had hoped to get out an early morning blog entry, but although our electricity came back quickly….our internet never came back :~(. Finally around 7:30 PM I headed upstairs…..Michael and I were going to have champagne and puffy things….but we were both cold, so decided to forgo tradition and have hot drinks and puffy things instead! We started with mozzarella sticks:

and finished up with brie and cranberries in puff pastry.

Our Christmas movie tonight was THE HOLIDAY….and I got a new ball of yarn wound (which took about an hour because there are so many yards in the skein):

so that I can start the front of my ruana.

We went out to the kitchen to do a bit of clean-up before bed....but Cookie was having none of it...deciding instead to stay snuggled in the quilt:

BTW – is anyone doing a year end clean out and going to be recycling some shoe boxes? I could use a few if you are….please let me know if you have some.

And here’s a blast from the WAY, WAY past…..BG came across a picture someone took of us (through a glass partitian) at work:

*** You’ve heard of gay pride? Well, we’ve got gray pride:

-we’re old

-we’re tired

-get off our lawn. ***

*** Finally old enough to do anything I want!

Too tired to actually do it. ***

*** I don’t always wake up grumpy….sometimes I let him sleep in. ***